On the road: Keeping it clean

I hate cleaning and I suck at housework. There. I said it. If you’ve ever been to my house, you will have witnessed the clutter and untidiness. If you are a good person and a good friend, you will have not said anything about it, and graciously dismissed my apologies for the mess. Bless you.

I grew up with a deep dislike of tidying and cleaning as I have always been associated with punishment. Further into my adult life, especially once I became a teacher, my time and energy became so limited from the business of educating teenaged minds that I just avoided it as much as I could. We lived in a big enough house that the neglect didn’t make itself apparent until a few weeks had passed, especially if you did the basics of cleaning dishes.

Now, I live in what is essentially a tiny home. We have 28 square metres in which to conduct our day-to-day lives. All of a sudden, there is absolutely no room for neglect, especially when you have a dog on board fluffing up the place. Furthermore, if you fail to put things back in their designated spot once you’re done using them, you soon find you have nowhere to sit, eat, or sleep. It’s quite motivating.

The enormous upside of living in such a small space is that, within a short amount of time and with a minimal amount of effort, we can have the place looking fabulous again. Vacuuming takes about 5 minutes. Kitchen wipedown takes 10 if the stove is dirty. Tidying takes another 5-10 minutes. It’s BRILLIANT! I can clean less and see more results, faster. It is super satisfying, and I think it’s starting to undo my negativity towards housework.

Some things do take considerably more effort, such as laundry and loo stuff. Now that we are out of “holiday mode” and into “van life mode”, we are trying to stay at free or cheap locations which means no washing machines or toilets close by. That means saving up a decent load to make a laundrette run worthwhile (which requires storage space) and it means making use of the loo more often and for more serious deposits… or driving to the closest public convenience when the urge takes you. The first is easy to solve - a large cloth bag under one of the seats. The second… well, it’s become a bit more of an issue.

You see, up until now, Dan was in charge of the black water. He manfully removed the cassette from its hidey-hole in the side of the van and capably disposed of the, err, contents at the nearest dump station, time after time, with only a tiny bit of complaining. However, in the interests of a fair and equitable marriage and ongoing goodwill in close-quarter living, I’ve moved past my deep-seated ICK feeling and learned how to decant the doo-doo. I’ve managed it twice now, and feel stupendously proud of this and only the slightest bit queasy. Huzzah for new skills!

Ah, aren’t you glad you read this blog?! The next one will not contain references to poop. I promise. Until then…!